Bangalore exodus = rumours + fear psychosis

Bangalore has been caught completely off-guard as thousands of people from northeast swarm the city railway station looking to get on a one-way train to Guwahati. The feeling of insecurity among them is so high that repeated attempts by the state government and the police to assure them of their safety haven’t reduced the number of migrants wanting to leave. The crowds on Thursday at the railway station were higher than on Wednesday.

Bangalore, according to the city police commissioner, Jyothi Prakash Mirji, has 2.75 lakh people of northeastern origin. That would put it among the top two cities in the country in terms of numbers. Probably on par with Delhi, if not higher. Most who come as students end up living and working here. Bangalore held a special attraction for them because of the its innate ability to seamlessly absorb new people and its burgeoning service industry: retail, hospitality, BPO. They are, in fact, everywhere: serving you at restaurants, cutting your hair at parlours, billing you at malls, guarding your apartment complex, and increasingly cleaning your house too.

It’s shocking that years, indeed, decades of social harmony has been upended by rumours, scary chain mails and smses. The police insist that not a single case of attack/abuse against the north -eastern populace has been registered. They insist that security will be provided and there’s nothing to fear.

If people are unwilling to accept that it means they know something the police don’t know or won’t acknowledge. TOI reporters from the field say that when they visited college campuses, hostels and neighbourhoods popular with northeastners, they were told of cases of random harassment: being slapped, beaten up, verbal abuse, strangers barging into their homes and asking them to get out; landlords, fearing trouble, asking them to vacate their PGs etc. They say that feeling vulnerable they haven’t gone to the police. Provocative messages and frantic calls from families back home have added fuel to the fire.

The stabbing of a Tibetan student in Msysore on Tuesday might have been the immediate trigger for the exodus. With police not able to catch the offenders, the theory put forward was that of mistaken identity. Stories that have gone viral on social media about purported attacks on Muslims by Bhuddist monks In Myanmar and smses and mails that have made them fear for their physical well-being post Eid — which is expected to fall either on Sunday or Monday – could be the other reasons. In fact, Muslim leaders are going to colleges with large northeastern population to assure them they will not come to any harm. Hopefully, such community out-reach measures will undo the damage done by rumours and the fear psychosis that has set in.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Author

Asha Rai, a senior editor with The Times of India in Bangalore, has been writing for over 20 years. Having started off as a business writer, she today also writes on society and social mores, is much interested in capturing the transition through which middle India is going through, best evidenced in her hometown. She particularly enjoys doing people profiles and interviews. She enjoys reading, travelling, movies and sports, especially football.

Asha Rai, a senior editor with The Times of India in Bangalore, has been writing for over 20 years. Having started off as a business writer, she today als. . .